One inevitable fact of the holiday
season is that airports around the country will be packed. That means
that millions of American's will be schlepping through airports on
layovers looking for something to do with their time and keep in
touch with friends and family.

Google has already given
travelers its holiday gift with free
Wi-Fi in selected airports. The free Wi-Fi service is available
as of today and will remain free through January 15, 2010. The free
service will be offered in many of the largest airports in the
country including Las Vegas, San Jose, Boston, Baltimore, Burbank,
Houston, Indianapolis, Seattle, Miami, Ft. Lauderdale, Orlando, St.
Louis, and Charlotte. The airports at Burbank and Seattle will
continue to offer free Wi-Fi to all travelers indefinitely.

"We're
very happy to extend our Holiday Wi-Fi gift to the millions of people
who will spend time in airports over the next few months," said
Marissa Mayer, Vice President of Search Products and User Experience
at Google. "We know that this is a very hectic travel season for
people, and we hope that free Wi-Fi will make both traveling and
connecting with friends and family a little bit easier."

The
full list of airports offering free Wi-Fi can be found
here. Google does warn that users of the free Wi-Fi will be hit
with a request to donate money to one of three charities including
Engineers Without Borders, the One Economy Corporation, or the
Climate Savers Computing Initiative. Travelers can use the free
service without donating though.

“Google gets this year’s
Wi-Fi Santa award for sponsoring complimentary access in dozens of
airports, both to the traveler’s and airport’s benefit,” said
Dave Hagan, president and CEO of Boingo Wireless. “In addition to
the obvious bonus holiday travelers will enjoy, sponsored access will
increase overall Wi-Fi usage in the participating airports and help
supplement the airport’s increasingly important non-airline
incremental revenue.”

“So far we have not seen a single Android device that does not infringe on our patents." -- Microsoft General Counsel Brad Smith